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Hello All
This is my first post since I joined and have been researching about how to bring my Truck back to its Happy Time. This place has been a great resource, so Thanks
I'm the Original owner of my 1994 Pick-Up V6 4x4 in a nice metallic green. It was my first new car ever and it was great. I drove it for years and have racked up 217k before making it a second car used only when I need to bring my motorcycle to the track or hall Junk. I can sit for 2 months and start right up every time.
Im sorry to say I have neglected it a bit over the last 5-8 years, but It never has any problems (until recently). All that has been done was the head gaskets under warranty at 100k along with the timing belt and basic consumables like regular oil changes.
Unfortunately some changes in my life mean I need to sell my car and go back to driving my truck full time, which Im OK with as I love this thing.
But... Over the last few month it had been losing power below 3k RPM and completely no power under load or even a small hill. But once it hits 3k it takes off and revs fine.
1.) I started off thinking it was the TPS as it seemed to be very consistent with how much you pushed the pedal. So, reset it to factory spec, no change, bought a new one, no change
2.) Replaced all the vacuum hoses and fixed the leaks, a little better
3.) Started thinking maybe fuel issues, so I replaced the Fuel Pressure regulator as the pressure was low, again a little better, but still bad and not acceptable.
4.) Brought it to a shop and he cleaned and replace 2 injectors, still not good, and he wanted to much to continue to diagnosis it, so I took it back
5.) Next I inspected the MAF thing and noticed the door was always half open and did not close, so I replace it and it made a nice improvement, basically acceptable to drive, but by no means any good.
After a week of driving is started getting really bad and was going down hill, so I figured Ill just replace all the injectors and started to remove the intake and all.
Then I had the bright idea or remembering my basics, Compression, Fuel, Spark, Boom. So I did a compression check, Cylinder 1 was 180psi cranking, same with 2, 3, 4, 5, I got to no 6, and it had 30psi Crap, I wasted a lot of money and time, being stupid and not checking compression, along with the spark and fuel.
To Finish a long story, it has a burn exhaust valve on No 6 as I never checked valve clearance, it stayed open with no lash, and fried. The reason I think it ran OK above 3k is because it was spinning fast enough to build some compression, but below that it was a dead slug.
So I'm going to rebuild it, and thought it would be fun to post my progress and hopefully lean some more good advice along the way. I really want to make it like new and clean it and dial it all in, so I can drive it another 200k
Lots of pics to follow
I live in Southern California so the paint is faded, but the body is perfect, rust free and clean. The Interior is very nice too besides the ripped driver seat and frayed driver seat belt.
Yay! Another classic Toyota being saved and brought back to its former glory!
Starting with a rust-free Truck is great.
It looks like you have learned that it is best to diagnose and test for problems before replacing parts, although it does sound like some of the parts you replaced, such as the Air Flow Meter, did need to be replaced, so not all was lost.
Despite what many of the older threads here say about the 3VZ-E V6, it is still a great engine and I see many still on daily use in the Portland, OR area.
I got to work on pulling the head, lots of pictures along the way to remember all the hose routing and wire connections.
Amazing how much crap to remove to get the heads.
I was really happy to see the intake valves near perfectly clean and free of carbon build up. Same with the catalytic converter,
I thought it would be blown out but look at the picture? I think it looks good still? Is this supposed to have this look or does it make sense to replace it since it has 217k on it?
...lots of pictures along the way to remember all the hose routing and wire connections. ...
Is a picture worth 1,000 words? Well, no. Taking those pictures is a very good idea, but I suggest you get a sheet of paper and draw a map of where all that stuff goes. It should be pretty simple (particularly if you have factory vacuum lines, which are marked). You'd be surprised how hard it is to tell where one piece of spaghetti goes by looking at a photo. Do it now, while you have some memory to fill in the gaps in the photos.
Nuts and bolts too? When I remove items like the head, I put all the fasteners back into where they came out. If you can't do that, you can try using masking tape to attach the relevant bolts to, say, the intake stay bracket. If you send the head off the machine shop, you ought to remove all those stored fasteners, so again I'd draw a simple drawing (the head has 5 sides -- no fasteners on the gasket side) with fastener size and length.
It is a headache and an adventure digging deep down into the belly of that hood. When I purchased my 4runner I was foolish enough to think a few items here and there will bring her back to shape. You are forward thinking enough to plan on the rebuild straight up
I second Scopes advice about the photos not being enough sometimes. I mean, if you have the FSM you will figure it out, but some parts are impossible to capture on a picture.
Any plans on messing with the wiring harness? I had to completely take mine apart and redo many parts of it due to various issues with the wires. Especially the areas where the wires get hot and now you are moving them around and bending them for the first time in 25 years.
Getting the exhaust manifolds and down pipe was a nightmare.
2 days soaking it all with penetrating oil. I rounded the heads of the nuts trying to use a super long extension from the underside to get to the down pipe.
Ended up getting this cool inside out looking easy out thing for rounded off nuts. Worked like a charm.
It is a headache and an adventure digging deep down into the belly of that hood. When I purchased my 4runner I was foolish enough to think a few items here and there will bring her back to shape. You are forward thinking enough to plan on the rebuild straight up
I second Scopes advice about the photos not being enough sometimes. I mean, if you have the FSM you will figure it out, but some parts are impossible to capture on a picture.
Any plans on messing with the wiring harness? I had to completely take mine apart and redo many parts of it due to various issues with the wires. Especially the areas where the wires get hot and now you are moving them around and bending them for the first time in 25 years.
careful
Good advice, I did not think of that. Im hoping my harness is OK, I have had no issues except now that Im taking it apart. All the plastic is dry and just breaking. Ill need to find new connectors for the distributor, as well as all the injectors, they littler are crumbling. You can also see that plastic harness tray that passes over the engine is all falling apart too.
Ill have to find a good source for the connectors, and maybe the factory for the wire harness guide tray thingy
Last edited by Eightfortyeight; 05-12-2019 at 11:26 AM.
Reason: typo
Had I been "luckier," the existing pins would have fit the new bodies, but that was not to be. So I cut off the old pins as close to the metal as I could (to shorten the wire as little as I could), and crimped on the new pins. You should use a real crimp tool; even a cheap one will fold the crimp correctly, unlike the kind sold at the hardware store for insulated lugs.
Most of the other connector bodies are still available from Toyota. Searching for them is not too easy, but if you have the old one it may have the last 5 digits of the part number molded in. Slap 90980- before them and search on any dealer site.
Had I been "luckier," the existing pins would have fit the new bodies, but that was not to be. So I cut off the old pins as close to the metal as I could (to shorten the wire as little as I could), and crimped on the new pins. You should use a real crimp tool; even a cheap one will fold the crimp correctly, unlike the kind sold at the hardware store for insulated lugs.
Most of the other connector bodies are still available from Toyota. Searching for them is not too easy, but if you have the old one it may have the last 5 digits of the part number molded in. Slap 90980- before them and search on any dealer site.
Thanks for the link, Im pretty sure I found the distributor one on Amazon
Good advice, I did not think of that. Im hoping my harness is OK, I have had no issues except now that Im taking it apart. All the plastic is dry and just breaking. Ill need to find new connectors for the distributor, as well as all the injectors, they littler are crumbling. You can also see that plastic harness tray that passes over the engine is all falling apart too.
Ill have to find a good source for the connectors, and maybe the factory for the wire harness guide tray thingy
Reading your post is like deja-vu......while I don’t possess the time, talent or guts to undertake the task,, my ‘94 4Runner is currently having the engine rebuilt. It is the same color inside and out as your truck, 216K and I am the original owner as well. Same issue with my harness, virtually all of the connector housings are disintegrating. While searching this forum I stumbled on a link (which of course I can’t find now) for toyotaparts.bochtoyotasouth.com. They had all of the connectors for 50-75% less than my local stealership. Shipping cost was a bit high, but by not having to place multiple orders it probably evens out in the end.
And yes, the folks on this forum are great at offering advice and information. That 5 digit number makes finding the parts so easy, thanks to scope103 who shared that on my post too!
Parts are are due in tomorrow, once I have everything sorted out I will try and post a list of the part numbers/locations for reference.
Last edited by Stillplayswithtrucks; 05-14-2019 at 03:00 PM.
Reason: Add info
Thanks for the parts supplier link, those are better prices than I have seen before. It will save me a bit considering what I found out today
So instead of being lazy and only fixing the one burnt valve (all cylinders but #6 showed 190-200 psi cranking compression) I decided to pull the other head and do it right.
Glad and sad I did. Glad because cylinder #1 had a blown head gasket that had embedded itself in the piston top.
Also it looks like coolant must have hit the cylinder walls as they are weirdly pitted.
Next problem is the deck of the block, no way Im putting that back together with JB weld. It is so badly pitted, yet the surface of the alloy heads look OK.
Now I guess Im rebuilding the entire motor, uhhhhhhh
BTW, look at my other luck, every sensor on the water temp manifold just fell apart. Those things are expensive
Nice. As they say "pictures or it didn't happen". Lot of folks look thru these for help. A really good thread not only has photos, but descriptions of what is wrong, and how it was addressed.
Ahhh I have been having a hell of a time getting the pictures to my computer then resized to upload. Need to figure out why they go blank once I resize them in Office Picture Software
So I brought the block and heads to a local shop, just looking for a stock re-build. Found a good guy, just him and his brother in the shop. I felt lucky to find people that still do this type of work for a what I thought was a reasonable price.
He turned it all around in a week as he promised too.
They ended up finding me a really nice used block as mine was so pitted on the head mating surface. Also my bores were pretty bad from the blown head gaskets. The used block cost like 150.00 and I got it decked and bored .5mm oversized
I purchase a new Oil pump and complete gasket set. The heads got new guides cleaned, cut seats and valves, as well as all assembled and properly shimmed ready to drop on.
The block got new pistons, rings, small end rod bearings and well as new main bearings and a polished crank. New freeze plugs and he even painted it.
Last edited by Eightfortyeight; 11-09-2019 at 02:46 PM.
05-08-2019, 06:32 PM
